


The Skin Of The Dead

by AbigailHT



Category: The Walking Dead (Comics), The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: (during and after the negan storyline), (of the show), (until the Negan storyline), Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Carl Grimes Lives, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Jesus is not just a pretty decoration - he IS the main character, M/M, Minor Character Death, POV Jesus, Plot, Post-Canon, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Whisperers Storyline - my own mashup of TV show and Comic content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-20 08:39:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14891261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbigailHT/pseuds/AbigailHT
Summary: Daryl Dixon was smoking a cigarette, his back relaxed against the wall, one leg bent, emphasizing the skin of his knee you could see through his torn jeans, and looking up at him with a calm expression that nearly managed to shake Paul out of his composure.He hadn’t expected the man here. Yes, he had known of his presence at the Hilltop, along with some others from Alexandria, but he had managed to avoid coming across him—until now.





	1. Whisper

**Author's Note:**

> I had written this nearly a year ago and finally decided that it was time to start posting. It’s ongoing and a WIP.  
> Thank you to _MyPinkCactus_ for beta-reading this, for being amazing, and inspiring, and a good friend. I wouldn’t be writing or drawing in this fandom, I wouldn’t even be here, without you  <3  
> And thank you to my other lovely friends who got to see the first chapters before I posted, for encouraging me. I don't think I would have ever posted this without your kind words.
> 
> //
> 
> Just a little heads up so you’re not confused: I started writing this after season 7 and before season 8. Which means it’s not TV show canon at all after season 7 anymore, but I might pick up stuff I like and that fits as I go and work that in. And I also work with elements of comic canon, hence Jesus not being a decoration, in fact, he’s the main character in this story. And now, I hope you enjoy :)))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I accidentally deleted the first chapter (wanted to delete the second after posting, because something went wrong) and lost all my comments :(  
>  Had to repost :( _

#### 1.1

Night had already fallen when there was a timid knock on the door of Paul Monroe’s trailer. The person on the other side, however, didn’t seem to be patient enough to wait for an answer, because the door swung open and an agitated teenager with long brown hair and a stern look on her face entered. She was out of breath, and before Paul could say a single word, she raised both hands and said, “Maggie wants to see you.”

Paul, who’d been sitting on his couch and reading ‘Gulliver’s travels’ for the umpteenth time, straightened his back and laid the book down beside him, eyebrows pulling together in confusion.

“What happened, Enid?” he asked, worry seizing him in an instant. “Are Maggie and Hershel alright?“

“Yeah, they are alright, it’s about the group she sent out two days ago, some didn’t make it back, I don’t know the details, but it seems important."

The group, which they’d sent on a supply run two days ago, consisted of some of the experienced scouts of the Hilltop colony. Usually they rarely had problems in the outside world, sometimes there were injuries, but—with very few exceptions—they hardly ever had to deal with casualties.

Not anymore.

Since they’d won the war against Negan, Paul and a few of the Alexandrians had been training the people of the settlement. Once it had only been Paul and a few others who’d gone outside on supply runs and missions, but now, they had several groups of people specialized on different tasks, helping the colony to thrive and grow over the past few years. Minimizing the risk they took every time they sent someone out there. It had gotten to the point where people started leading normal lives and forgetting about the horrors they’d witnessed just two years ago.

Therefore, the current situation took Paul by surprise, but he didn’t waste any second, got up quickly and followed the girl back to the Barrington House where he was already awaited by Maggie in Gregory’s former office.

The leader of Hilltop was pacing up and down the dim lit room, arms crossed and a frown set on her face. Her head snapped up as soon as they arrived and she walked up to them.

“Jamie just came back from the run,” she said with urgency in her voice. “He is injured, lost his horse, and barely made it back here alive on foot—“

“What about the others?” Paul interrupted her impatiently, also crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“They didn’t make it back,” Maggie answered.

“Are they—“

“They could be! We don’t know, but there’s a chance they might be still alive. But this isn’t what concerns me the most, it’s…”

Maggie turned slightly and looked out of the window. There was nothing more to see than darkness, but her eyes still seemed to be looking for something, and when Paul realized what he was seeing in her eyes, the nerves that had taken over his body turned into burning needles piercing his stomach: It was fear.

“What is it?” he asked and reached for her shoulder, squeezing it, and turning her attention back to him.

“He says he heard walkers talking, says they kidnapped the others, and that they’re hurt too.”

Paul stared at her, bewildered. “What?”

“Yeah, you heard me.”

“What the actual fuck?!” Enid exclaimed.

Both of them had already forgotten that the girl was still there and jumped slightly. They didn’t respond to her though, Paul turned around and walked out of the library with hurried steps, Maggie and Enid followed him.

“I don’t know if you’ll get useful information out of him now, Jesus. Whatever he saw, it must have been horrifying—he… he seems to have lost his mind.”

“Still gotta try, that’s why you called me, right?”

There was no answer, but he didn’t need one. If Wesley and Bertie were still out there, alive, then they had to do everything in their power to help them.

When they entered the hospital trailer moments later, they were greeted by a nervous Alex, blocking their paths.

 “Has he calmed down yet?” Maggie asked. “We need to talk to him.”

“Again? He’s just a kid and he doesn’t feel so well right now, I gave him tranquilizers, he was hitting his head against the wall…”

“Man, Wesley is out there, don’t you give a fuck?!” Enid cut in and earned a disapproving look from Paul and Maggie. “What? It’s the truth.”

“Why don’t you go and tell the group from Alexandria to come see me tomorrow morning before they leave. And please don’t tell your friends about this before we know more.”

Enid looked at them, clearly upset about being sent away, but she said “Fine” and obeyed Maggie’s order nonetheless.

When they returned their attention back to the nurse, Paul couldn’t help but feel pity towards the man. Enid’s remark had hit him harder than she probably had intended to. He was looking down at his shaking hands and trying to calm himself with a few deep breaths.

Although it had been a long time since Paul had ended their unofficial relationship—even before they’d met the Alexandrians—it still felt weird to stand there, unable to comfort his former friend and lover in a moment like this when he was clearly worried about his boyfriend and probably endlessly scared to hear of his death. So he was glad when Maggie stepped forward and hugged the man, whispered consoling words into his ear and gave him a reassuring smile, calming Alex for the most part and even managing to put a sad smile on his face.

Alex didn’t object to let them pass any longer, with a quick glance towards Paul, he stepped aside and left the trailer.

Maggie hadn’t exaggerated when she’d said that Jamie seemed to have lost his mind. He was holding his ears shut with his hands, his eyes were closed, and he was mumbling incoherent things to himself. It nearly took Paul half an hour to get him to talk to him, and the information he got wasn’t really saner than what Maggie had already told them either.

While they’d been on the supply run, they got surrounded by walkers. It hadn’t been too many; they’d been in control of things, when suddenly Wes had gotten injured. They’d thought he was bit at first, but the wound on his arm was too straight and clean to be a bite mark, and in that moment, Jamie had been stabbed by a knife in his shoulder. The knife had missed his neck by inches, only injuring the flesh above his collarbone that was all patched up now. They’d been separated, Jamie had managed to run away, and from a safe distance, it had looked to him as if the group of walkers had closed down on his friends, but they hadn’t stopped to eat them, no screams were heard, nothing. He’d been followed by them for a while, but had managed to hide in a ditch where he’d killed two walkers before laying them on top of himself, trying to mask the smell of his blood that probably would have attracted them otherwise.

“They whispered,” he said, rubbing his short, curly black hair and shaking his head. “They whispered! Kill them, kill them, kill them. They tried to kill us with knives, Jesus, _knives_. Walkers with knives, am I going crazy?!”

Tears were running down his cheeks now. “I’m so sorry that I left them, I just left them and ran, but what was I supposed to do? They wanted to kill me, kill all of us, they whispered… whispered… that they were going to find me, that they were going to kill _all of us_. But I hid, I just hid like a coward and abandoned Wes and Bertie, I am so sorry, _so sorry_!”

Paul sat down on the edge of the bed, pulled away his hands from his head and took them into his.

“Stop blaming yourself, Jamie,” he said with a calming voice and stroked the dark skin of the boy with his thumbs soothingly. “You did the right thing. You survived, you returned, and now you’re here, telling us what happened. No one blames you, for all that it’s worth, you might be the only hope they have left. You did the right thing. Now look at me. Look at me, Jamie, do you think you can lead me to where you have last seen them?”

With a stupefied expression on his face, blinking away a few tears in surprise, Jamie slowly nodded with a gulp.

“Alright, try to calm down now and sleep. We’ll head out early in the morning and I need you to be rested for that. I need you to be able to go out there with me, okay?”

Jamie nodded again, this time with more determination. Paul patted his shoulder, stood up, and turned to face Maggie. She gestured to him to talk outside, so they left the trailer in silence. Outside they met Alex again, approaching them as soon as he saw them.

“Did you find out anything helpful?” he asked them with a hopeful glance at Paul, but he didn’t get an answer.

Maggie ignored the man and focused on Paul with mixed feelings radiating from her face. “You are _not_ really thinking about going out there alone, hunting walkers with knives down, are you?”

“No, Jamie will come with me,” he answered impassively.

“Are you being serious?”

“Jamie is in no condition to leave Hilltop any soon,” Alex protested.

“Well, he’ll have to,” Paul replied with a harder tone than he’d planned to. “He just needs to rest, whatever that is what happened has freaked him out—and I can’t blame him. If there are people hiding amongst walkers, attacking people, that’s some serious dangerous thing to just ignore.”

“You actually think it’s people?” Maggie asked. “I mean, I know we can walk amongst them, my group has done it a few times, but that just sounds crazy.”

“Not as crazy as imagining walkers with knives.”

“Was it really a knife wound?” Maggie asked Alex.

He nodded. “Sure looked like it, it wasn’t deep, but a clean cut.”

“So either Jamie has gone crazy, imagining things, or there are people hiding amongst walkers, killing people,” Maggie muttered to herself. “No, we can’t ignore this. This could happen again, this could endanger everything we built up. Crazy people like that attacked Alexandria once, killed so many, and we nearly lost the city to a herd because of them. Something like that can’t happen again.”

Alex watched her with wide eyes, he’d already been pale before, but now he looked like he was about to vomit in front of them any second.

“Could you look after Jamie for us? I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave him alone tonight,” Paul said to Alex, trying to distract the man from the current topic, although he wasn’t sure if it was the best method to send him to the boy who’d witnessed his partner being abducted by a horde of walkers.

“Yeah… I’ll stay with him. I don’t really want to be alone either,” he sighed in response and walked back inside the trailer.

They decided to talk about this inside to prevent other Hilltop citizens from listening in and maybe spreading panic.

Paul would head out with Jamie to the place where he’d last seen the group and they would trace the tracks from there. Trying to find anything that indicated to what had happened there that day. He thought about Alex’ shaking hands and hoped that they would find them alive and well, and not their reanimated corpses.

 

#### 1.2

All the runners and scouts had received armor from The Kingdom which they wore whenever they went outside, so Paul picked up his the next morning and put it over his black long sleeve shirt and brown cargo pants. He tied his long hair up into a knot, secured his knife sheaths on his belt and legs, and grabbed the short-sword Earl Sutton had forged for him. It was in a leather scabbard, which was fitted with metal on the inside to protect the material from the sharp blade, and had a dark brown belt secured to it that he could throw over his shoulder. After he’d pulled his leather gloves over his hands, he stepped out of his trailer to head for the stables, but stopped short when he saw someone leaning against his trailer from the corner of his eyes and turned to look who it was.

Daryl Dixon was smoking a cigarette, his back relaxed against the wall, one leg bent, emphasizing the skin of his knee you could see through his torn jeans, and looking up at him with a calm expression that nearly managed to shake Paul out of his composure.

He hadn’t expected the man here. Yes, he had known of his presence at the Hilltop, along with some others from Alexandria, but he’d managed to avoid crossing paths with him—until now. He wasn’t in the mood to talk or even acknowledge him any further, so he turned around and continued his path without a word.

When he heard the other man leaving his position and following him, he sighed and turned around again.

“What are you doing here?” he managed to ask with some self-control and frowned at him.

“Maggie sent me to accompany you,” he replied unimpressed by Paul’s behavior. “Said you needed to track down some people.”

“Yeah, thank you, we don’t need your help. You can go back with the others.”

“They already left, seemed important to inform Rick.”

“Well, then I’m sorry, but I’m sure you’ll find your way back home on your own.”

Daryl stared at him without blinking, then he snorted and shook his head. “How long are you gonna stay mad at me?”

“I’m not mad at you, Daryl, you’ve made it perfectly clear to me where we both stood and I’m just trying to fulfill your fucking wish. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some stuff to do.”

He started to walk again.

“Never said we couldn’t be friends anymore,” the other man retorted and followed him again. “Come on, man, this has been going on for weeks now, everyone’s being a fuckin’ pain my ass about it too.”

Paul didn’t respond; he only set his jaw when they reached the stables and he opened the door. He was surprised that Daryl still kept following him, which wasn’t like him. He would’ve expected to hear a “Whatever” and see him walk away again, not even making a further effort to talk to him.

He tried really hard to shut that tiny shimmer of hope down that was growing inside of his chest, but he more or less failed. It was the first time that Daryl Dixon had confronted him about something like this, instead of ignoring it until the rest of their lives. Though, it was neither the right time nor the right place to discuss personal matters like this, so he didn’t press any further, and given the stubbornness of the man he was dealing with, talking him out of obeying Maggie’s order would be a waste of time anyway.

“It’s useless to discuss this with you now—will you take the bike or borrow a horse?”

“Pff, you have to ask?” he snorted and left the stables without saying anything else.

Paul sighed. The last time he’d been out on a run with Daryl had turned into a huge mess. Leading into the fight they’d had and the current situation in which he didn’t want to speak to the man again, but he couldn’t stop himself from being happy about the fact that he at least cared enough about him to want to be friends again.

He could do that—be his friend—he’d managed to do that for almost two years. Until being in a confined room with him, in a building that had been surrounded by hundreds of walkers, not expecting to get out of there alive again, had changed his mind about that and he’d kissed him without thinking too much about it first. The rejection hadn’t been right away, he must have surprised the man so much that he’d allowed his lips to linger on him for several moments before shoving him away. The fight hadn’t come until after they’d freed themselves from that place the next morning, though, after the herd had already forgotten about them and decided to move on.

‘Never come fucking near me again,’ had been Daryl’s hateful words that had clung to his memory like a hungry leech, hurting him deeper than he would’ve liked to admit to himself.

Snapping out of his thoughts, he took a deep breath and prepared two horses before leading them outside and to the hospital trailer where he bound them to a nearby tree. When he entered the hospital trailer, he was pleased to see Jamie up on his feet, already dressed, geared up, and ready to head out.

“How’re you feeling today?” he asked him.

“Better… yesterday was just… it was horrible and the… the…” he mumbled and closed his eyes. “Thinking that it’s just normal people hidden among them helped me to… you know, get my shit together.”

He laughed nervously and flashed a smile at Jesus. Relieved, Jesus returned the smile and put his arm around the boy’s shoulders, careful not to hurt his wound, while they walked outside.

Jamie was seventeen years old, their youngest runner, but already more capable than half of the other scouts. The boy didn’t have a family, he’d lost them early on in the first days of the apocalypse, but had managed to survive and reach the Hilltop with a group that had taken him in.

Before, it would have been unthinkable to let a minor go out there and do the hard work for their community, but now it was normality. Teenagers learning, training, and working for the community by choice, contributing in whichever way they could.

“What if we’re late and they’re already dead?” he asked with a small voice.

“Then at least we’ll know.”

“Is _he_ really going to come with us?” Jamie whispered and pointed to the gates where Daryl was waiting for them, holding on to his bike.

“Yeah…”

“That’s _so cool_!” the boy said with a wide grin when Paul handed his reins over to him.

With a puzzled look on his face, Paul eyed him incredulously.

“What?” Jamie asked, blushing immediately. “He’s so badass, just look at him, he has _a crossbow_!”

“Have you been to The Kingdom yet?” Paul laughed when they started to move towards the gates.

“No? But I have friends in Alexandria and they also think he’s cool.”

“Yeah, I think you should go to The Kingdom sometime, there are others with crossbows, and bows, too.”

“Doesn’t matter, they’re still not _the Daryl Dixon_. Have you heard he led away a horde with billions of walkers on his bike once? All by himself? And he blew up some saviors with a _rocket launcher_ , and Carl told me –“

Paul cut him off with a sharp movement of his hand. “Focus on the task at hand, Jamie. We will be out there, it might get dangerous, I don’t need you to be distracted by heroic stories you’ve heard of him.”

The corners of Jamie’s mouth turned down into a sulk, showing his young age despite of his muscles and his height, making him look older than he actually was, but he didn’t say anything anymore.

 

#### 1.3

After an hour, they reached the spot where Jamie had seen the group for the last time, before running off home. It wasn’t hard to see where the traces were leading, since it seemed to have been a larger group, but Paul humored the man on the bike and didn’t say a word when he explained it to them. Another two hours passed, but they still hadn’t closed down on them yet. Daryl was positive that they were still following the right tracks, but Paul started to doubt that this would lead them anywhere. Plus, it sounded suspicious to him that not even one walker seemed to have parted from the group, as if they’d been bound together.

“Are you sure we are still following a group of walkers?” Paul asked him after another hour when they reached the main street of a small town.

“Yeah, it’s still them.”

“How the hell are they keeping together like this over this distance? You sure it wasn’t all people, Jamie?”

“Yeah, I’m sure, the ones I’ve killed were dead already! But the ones with the knives… they looked off and they—their movements were more natural, one of them aimed for my neck,” he said, putting one of his hands on his hurt shoulder, shaking his head at the confusing memory.

“I can’t tell exactly, because they are too many and trample all over each other’s tracks, but at the sides, those tracks look like walkers,” Daryl explained, pointing at some of the traces. “What they got in the middle or up front? I can’t tell. If they are moving with walkers, they must know how to keep them together—like sheep.”

Only a few minutes had passed when Daryl suddenly lifted his left arm and stopped his bike. “Hold on!”

“What is it?” Jamie asked when they all came to a stop.

“I see some of them parting from the group now,” Daryl said and put down the kickstand of his motorcycle.

He walked up to the tracks, crouched down, and looked around. “The main group moved forward, but some separated, it looks like in every direction.”

Paul cursed and descended from the horse, there was no other choice than to check those tracks to make sure that they didn’t overlook anything. They locked the horses into a secured room of a small shop and followed the hunter examining the tracks.

They heard some snarls before they could find anything else, though. They were coming from the side streets and from between the buildings. They didn’t come from one direction, however, it seemed like they could hear walkers moaning and growling from every direction now.

“It’s a trap,” Jamie whispered and his full lips started to shiver. “There, that one is holding a fucking knife.”

Paul and Daryl followed to where the boy was pointing and they both looked at each other, alarmed. There was, indeed, a walker coming at them with a knife in his right hand. Daryl grabbed his crossbow and took aim, but Paul stepped closer to him, touching his shoulder.

“Don’t kill him, if he’s human, we can talk to him.”

“Are you mad?” Daryl hissed. “We are getting surrounded and these bastards are the cause of it.”

“Just kill the fucking walkers, Daryl.”

“They have knives!”

“Then _try_ not to kill them, for fuck’s sake,” Paul said in exasperation when a walker came too close to them.

He pulled both of his knives out of their sheaths and set off without discussing any longer. He ended five walkers with his knives, kicked the sixth down, and before he could shove his knife into its temple, he heard someone running at him from behind. Led by pure instinct, he ducked to the left and saw an arm passing his right shoulder with a rusty knife. Feeling the presence of the other body close to him, he took a step back and rammed his right elbow in someone’s stomach before he took hold of the extended arm, stepped forward, and threw his attacker over his right side in a whirl, right next to the walker on the ground who hadn’t yet managed to stand up again.

There was no time for a pause, though, because he saw Jamie getting surrounded by walkers and one human attacker. He heard a wheezing sound and a loud crunchy noise suddenly, and when he looked down, he saw that Daryl had shot the walker in the face that had been trying to catch Paul’s leg in front of him. Without losing any second, he ran to Jamie and saw in shock how one knife nearly cut his nose off. The boy dodged, but lost his balance and fell down with a yelp.

One arrow appeared in the scull of a walker that had tried to bite Jamie’s ankle before he heard muffled sounds of a fight from where Daryl was located. Paul couldn’t risk taking his eyes off the boy though, since one of the humans crouched over him and lunged out to stab him in the chest.

The scout sped up and tackled Jamie’s opponent down with a thumping sound, throwing him across the street on his back and steadying himself before he could fall himself, too.

His previous attacker had recovered and approached him now from the left again, he turned around, threw his knives to the ground, and brought himself into position before the disguised person stabbed his knife forward with his right arm, which he blocked and grabbed with his right hand, pulled him towards himself and hit his jaw hard with his left elbow in one motion, paralyzing the other for the few seconds he needed to grab a firmer hold on him and jump up the man with his legs flying up and his head facing down, closing his thighs around the man’s neck and pulling him down towards the ground, forcing him to whirl around again, but this time not letting go of him but choking him into unconsciousness with his legs around his throat, careful not to kill him.

 Jamie killed a walker that had tried to bite his head meanwhile, and got up to his feet again, facing the human attacker who’d tried to stab him earlier. Paul stood up and helped him defeat this one too when they heard painful cries. Paul’s heart—mostly steady up until that point—picked up its pace and he turned to look who those cries belonged to. The relieved feeling that washed over him when he saw that it wasn’t Daryl, but his assaulter whose chest had been stabbed several times, was quickly overrun by a dreadful realization that there were too many walkers for him to possibly deal with alone.

In the time Paul needed to pick up his knives again and rush over to him, Daryl had slit the throat of a second person and thrown his knife into the eye of a walker.

“Fuck not killin’ them,” he grunted in frustration when Paul reached his side.

“Well, at least you tried,” he answered and they killed the walkers coming down on them together.

When only corpses and two unconscious humans were left, they took a small break to catch their breaths before they tied up those two to a streetlamp. They took a closer look at them and noticed that they looked like walkers because they were wearing some sort of masks.

“What is it… is it skin?” Jamie asked in disgust.

“Yeah, I guess,” Daryl said. “Probably why they can move among them, the dead skin covers up their smell.”

“It’s gross.”

“Well, whatever works, you know,” Daryl replied, grabbed them by their hair, and pulled their masks from their heads.

One of them was a young girl with dark brown hair, and the other—the one Paul had choked—a middle-aged man. Seeing this, Daryl walked back to the other men he’d killed and shoved his knife into their heads before they had the chance to wake up again.

They decided to look around to find more clues as to where the others might be while Jamie stood guard. Daryl had handed him the small handgun he was carrying around in case of emergency.

“Don’t understand why you’re never wearing one,” he whispered to Paul when they turned around a corner, following one of the traces.

“I usually don’t need one anymore,” Paul answered. “The war is over.”

“Well, seems like there are others fuckin’ with us now.”

 Then they heard voices and muffled whimpers and looked at each other—they came from the direction they’d left Jamie with their prisoners.

Cursing, they headed back to the main street and were welcomed by the sight of a group of five people standing in front of Jamie—two of them were Wes and Bertie. Their mouths and hands were tied up and they both had threatening knives pushed at their throats by the two men of the group. None of them were wearing masks so they could see clearly who they were dealing with, but didn’t recognize their faces. The men looked grim and determined to kill if they even dared to do anything wrong, and their third member—a woman with a shaved head—was standing in the front and looking hostile at the gun Jamie was aiming at her.

Daryl wanted to grab his crossbow by reflex, but the movements of the two men, tightening the pressure of the knives to Wes and Bertie’s throats, restrained him immediately.

“Who is your leader?” the woman asked the boy sternly.

Jamie looked unsure over to Daryl and Paul, but didn’t answer. He held his gun more firmly and stared back at the woman in defiance.

“Which one of you?” she asked Paul and Daryl now.

They didn’t have a formal leader, but judging by Daryl putting his head to the side and watching him in expectation, it was probably him. Paul stepped forward with his hands held high in submission to prevent those men from deciding to do something drastic to his friends.

“Well then, tell your guard dog to put the gun down.”

“You let our people go first,” Paul demanded.

“No. He puts the gun down.”

“I won’t do shit!” the teenager spat in anger.

“Tell him to shut up,” she said calmly.

“Jamie, calm down.”

The boy snarled, but didn’t object any further.

“The gun.”

“He will put the gun down when you let our people go,” Paul said insistently.

“Then let ours go first,” she retorted harder.

Paul thought about it for a second and then nodded. He walked over to their prisoners, who were already awake by now, and loosened their bonds to the streetlamp without untying them completely. When they stood up, he grabbed both of their ties around their wrists and shoved them forward around Jamie and came to a halt beside the boy to—if necessary—protect him if one of them decided to turn around and attack again. But that didn’t happen. They reached their people, stood there silently, and just watched.

“Now it’s your turn,” Paul said and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

The woman hesitated for a moment, but then she gestured with her head and her men released Wes and Bertie. Both of them stumbled towards them, Bertie started to sob silent tears and Wes looked as if he was expecting to be stabbed in the back any moment. When they were near them, Paul helped to untie them and was surprised by a sudden hug by Bertie.

“Now we can talk,” the leader of the other group said. “Without a gun in my face, if possible.”


	2. Deal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I accidentally deleted the first chapter (wanted to delete the second after posting, because something went wrong) and lost all my comments :(_

#### 2.1

Jamie didn’t budge an inch until Paul put a hand on his arm to make him lower the gun. The boy never relaxed though, he was focused on the people in front of them, muscles twitching, the gun in his hand ready to be raised and triggered within seconds. Paul saw from the corner of his eyes how Daryl grabbed his crossbow harder too, lifting it just a little, equally ready to react, now that their friends had been freed. Paul felt relief over having both long range weapons on his side, even more so because he could only see knives on the other group, giving them the higher ground if something should go wrong.

“Who are you?” Paul asked.

“Doesn’t matter who we are,” the woman said.

Since he had Daryl and Jamie watching them, he risked checking Bertie and Wes for injuries. As Jamie had already told them, Wes had a cut on his upper arm which had been unprofessionally patched up, looking like it could have used some stitches and proper medical treatment. Bertie had been lucky, she didn’t have any injuries other than some bruises and scratches.

“They will live,” the woman said with a mocking undertone.

“Thank you.”

“They wouldn’t be alive if your dog here hadn’t escaped. We would have killed them all, just so you don’t misunderstand what is happening here.”

Jamie slid one foot through the gravel nervously and gripped his gun even harder. A low gasp escaped from Bertie’s lips and Wes put an arm around her, pulling her into a comforting hug.

What she said didn’t make any sense to Paul whatsoever, so he just stared at the woman and waited for an explanation.

“They crossed the borders of our lands and killed our roamers, we kill everyone doing that—no exceptions.”

“Your roamers?” Paul asked confused.

“Yes, our roamers. This world belongs to them now and they tolerate us, they protect us, like family. They belong to us, and we to them. We are them and they are us.”

None of them had anything to say to that, they just stared in disbelief.

“Your boy escaped, we knew he’d be coming back with others to search for these two, so we didn’t kill them. We gave them a place to sleep and fed them, treated the man’s wound. So that you could have them back and we could settle this peacefully,” she continued.

“Attacking us is peaceful?” Paul asked and shook his head. “We could have discussed this before your men had to die.”

“They wanted to kill you, too,” Wes said in a whisper.

“What does that matter now?” their leader asked, clearly bored because of the conversation. “You spared some of ours, we spared yours. What matters is that you are alive and have your people back, and that you know not to trespass our borders anymore. Or there _will_ be consequences. Consider this as a warning.”

“So you lose the fight, chicken out, and warn _us?_ ” Daryl said with a hoarse voice, snorting.

“Yes, because we are more than you and we _will_ end you if you don’t listen.”

“We are five, and I only see five of you, too,” Jamie said.

“They are more,” Bertie said suddenly with reddened eyes.

“They are many more, we saw their camp, there were at least a hundred of them around,” Wes added with a shaky voice.

Paul’s head snapped towards him and a grave feeling climbed up his chest.

“It can’t be far from here, Jesus,” Bertie whispered in fear. “Don’t challenge them.”

“They know how to control walkers, Jesus, we saw them do it, they travel among large herds and… and they…” he gulped and looked back to the strange group that stood still as if cast in stone. “They showed us their herd, they have thousands… larger than any herd I have ever seen, and they control them. Let’s… let’s just listen and go back, man.”

“You heard your people, now leave us and never come back. This town will be marking our new border from now on. Until here and not any further,” the shaved leader said resolutely.

“This town? How many miles around?” Paul asked in disbelief. “What if we trespass by accident because we didn’t know?”

“You will know. We warned you. There won’t be a next time.”

She didn’t wait for them to answer, she just turned around, so did her people, and they walked away. Other than the teenage girl, who looked back a few times, none of the rest seemed to be even bothered by the fact that they had weapons and could shoot them in their backs.

And why should they?

Wes and Bertie were both scared, they had made an impression on them, one that had even managed to pierce Paul’s bones with dread, imagining what they must have seen. The strangers trusted that they wouldn’t act without thinking twice now that they knew everything they held dear could be endangered if they fucked up.

No one moved until they couldn’t see them anymore, and no one even thought about following them.

Daryl’s voice broke the silence. “We gotta tell Rick and the others.”

“Yeah, but we have to bring Wes and Bertie back first, Wes’s arm needs medical treatment,” Paul replied and turned to Jamie. “How’s your shoulder?”

“Hurts like a bitch, I think I busted some stitches during the fight,” the boy said and walked towards Daryl to give him his gun back.

“Will you come back with us, or will you drive to Alexandria directly?” Paul asked Daryl.

Daryl put his crossbow on his back and chewed on his lower lip, his eyes wandered from Jamie, who was rubbing his shoulder now, over Bertie and Wes, his eyes lingering on the wound on his arm, and ended up on him. They held each other’s gaze for a moment before Daryl broke the contact and looked down.

“Yeah, will go with you,” he said and walked back to where he had left his motorcycle.

Paul and Jamie went back to the shop for their horses and guided them outside again. They already had lost three horses and didn’t know whether they would return to Hilltop safely or not. That’s why Paul had equipped both of their horses with two-seater saddles, so that they didn’t have to risk taking out more animals than needed, in case they found their friends. Still, he asked Daryl if he could take either Wes or Jamie with him on his bike because of their injuries.

“Nah man, I am alright, let the kid have that seat,” Wes said and pointed at Jamie.

“Oh no, it’s okay, it just hurts a bit. When we rode here, I didn’t have any problems,” the boy protested. “You take that seat.”

“Shut up and get on that bike, James,” Wes ordered sharply. “I will ride with Bertie.”

Jamie looked at Daryl for a moment, his cheeks turning a dark reddish color, and he seemed nervous. Paul imagined how he would tell all his friends about his adventures with _the_ Daryl Dixon later, not really impressing Carl and Enid in the process. Even in a situation like this, he couldn’t stop himself from smiling while he mounted his horse.

Knowing that they were leaving a ghost town behind which marked their border to crazy people living among walkers, threatening to start a war if they ever dared to trespass again, wasn’t the best feeling Paul could imagine, but for now, he was glad that they had gotten two of their people back alive. They could rack their brains over this later when they reached home safely.

On their way back, they encountered a few walkers they took care of, but other than that, the trip back was fortunately uneventful. When they reached the gates of Hilltop, Daryl let Jamie get off his bike, and with a glance at Paul, turned it around to leave already. Paul wanted to go to him, thank him for his help, say something, but he found himself leading his horse back to the settlement instead, turning his back on him.

“Won’t you stay for dinner?” he heard Jamie ask.

“Nah, gotta go tell Rick,” Daryl answered in a low voice.

“We could send someone else, you must be tired and hungry,” Jamie said.

His suggestion sounded so hopeful that Paul had to suppress another smile. He gave his reins to Bertie, who offered to take the horses back to the stables, and walked towards Barrington House. When he opened the door, he nearly bumped into Maggie.

“I saw you arrive and hurried down,” she said. “Why is Daryl with you?”

“What?”

“I thought he left this morning for Alexandria.”

“You didn’t send him on this mission with us?”

Maggie looked confused. “No, I didn’t.”

“That lying bastard,” Paul hissed and turned around when he heard the engine of Daryl’s motorcycle come to life.

He could only see him briefly before he drove away, leaving a disappointed Jamie behind who was dragged to the direction of the hospital trailer the next moment by an impatient Wes.

“He accompanied you, telling you I told him that?” Maggie asked amusedly in her office later. “I thought he didn’t want you near him anymore, that’s why we stopped sending you two out on runs together.”

“That’s what I also thought,” Paul sighed and sat down on the chair in front of Maggie’s desk, rubbing his forehead. “But I won’t complain—he really was a help out there.”

“Well, looks like he’s missed you,” she said with a wide grin.

“Don’t, please don’t. I’m already exhausted,” he begged. “What I am about to tell you won’t amuse you anymore, so sit down and listen.”

When he finished talking, Maggie stared at her desk, not responding immediately. He knew that it was a lot to take in, so he waited patiently.

“So, you’re saying that there is a huge horde waiting to be sent upon us if we ever dare to cross these people?”

Paul nodded.

“Hundreds of crazy people living with walkers will kill all of us if we go somewhere by accident?”

“Well, no, she marked that town as the border, so we actually know where not to go anymore.”

“But we don’t even know about the extent of the area she was talking about. What does it mean that we will _know?_ ”

“I suspect that she will somehow mark their borders, but I don’t know. I thought about scouting the area to observe what they’re doing.”

“No, you won’t. I can’t risk you going out there alone, near those crazy people.”

“It’s not like I haven’t done this before.”

“I don’t want anyone near that area—at least for now.”

“Maggie, we have to know more about them. Know if there’s something that’s coming for us, we need to be prepared.”

“We will be. First we alarm the other settlements, and then we will discuss what we’re gonna do together. There will be more guards patrolling our perimeters, but other than that, no one goes near that town for now. We can’t risk it. Jesus, promise me you won’t.”

He nodded reluctantly and then excused himself. He didn’t agree with just sitting and waiting until everyone was alarmed and they decided upon something together, but he wouldn’t go against Maggie’s wish on a topic like this.

 

#### 2.2

The sun was going down slowly when he stepped outside and took a deep breath. He tried to calm down his nerves, telling himself that if they listened to that strange woman, didn’t go near their territory again, everything would be fine, but his experience told him otherwise. The threat she had imposed on them was very real and if Wesley and Bertie weren’t exaggerating, it didn’t feel safe to leave it alone either. He looked at their walls and shook his head because he knew that they wouldn’t hold back a large amount of walkers like that in the worst case.

Deep in thought, he went to the hospital trailer, but he regretted his choice immediately when he walked into Alex and Wes kissing in an intimate embrace. They broke apart right away, sending some medical supplies to the ground that Alex had knocked from the table with his elbow.

“Sorry, I just wanted to check on Jamie and Wes,” he said awkwardly, giving his best not to start laughing because of the bewildered expression on Alex’s face.

“Jamie already returned to his trailer,” the man said, turning bright red, and gave a little embarrassed cough.

Paul considered just telling him to calm down, that they weren’t teenagers anymore, that he wasn’t shocked by two men kissing, that it was fine—however uncomfortable the situation had made him feel—but he had the feeling that he would do the man a favor by acting as if nothing had happened, so he tried to humor him.

“Did his wound look bad? He said he may have busted some stitches…”

“Uh… I don’t know, Harlan looked at his wound, I ah, I patched Wes up.”

“Yeah, how’s your arm Wes?”

“Wasn’t pretty,” Alex answered for his boyfriend. “The cut was deep and they didn’t stitch him up, it didn’t look very clean either, but… it will heal, we just have to be careful with infections.”

“I’m glad, well, I know he’s in good hands,” Paul replied with a half-grin. “I’ll leave you both to it then.”

When he turned around and left the trailer, he heard Wes cracking up with laughter and Alex hissing ‘I told you we shouldn’t here’, and Paul couldn’t help but chuckle softly because he sounded so distressed.

Even though things had gotten awkward between him and Alex since Paul had ended their affair, he was still happy for both of them and that they seemed to have settled into a stable relationship lasting that long. Although, he also remembered the gossip and the accusations by the Hilltop citizens who couldn’t keep their noses out of other people’s business, ugly things they’d said about him that he’d had to take in without a word.

The smile on his face disappeared. It already had been hard for Paul to get close to people emotionally, and that silly incident had isolated him from the others even further. He still had been the man to go to if anyone needed help or something had to be done, but he couldn’t say that he’d had many real friends in this colony—not until he’d met the Alexandrians, and then, things had changed drastically.

It wasn’t easier to make friends or let people come close to him now either, but for the first time, since the apocalypse had started, he’d finally felt like he belonged. The Alexandrians had accepted him into their inner circle and even had adopted him into their family, which had meant the world for him.

Now, he couldn’t imagine life at Hilltop without Maggie and Enid anymore. Carl had moved here recently, too; he was one of Earl’s apprentices, eager to learn everything about being a blacksmith. According to Earl, the boy had great potential because he was skilled with his hands. When he wasn’t working for Earl, he would sit down on the steps to his and a few other teenager’s trailer, and carve figures into wood he specifically had searched for outside. Paul didn’t know where that change of heart in the teenager, who had been ready to fight and kill, had come from, but he had seen emptiness in his eyes after the war had been over. The boy had seen more death and cruelty a kid his age should have, therefore, Paul was glad that he had finally found something giving him peace and maybe healing those wounds, invisible for eyes, he must have suffered the past few years through all that bloodshed.

Nevertheless, Maggie’s biggest concern—before the current events—had been to keep Carl and Enid away from each other as best as she could. ‘I don’t need her to get pregnant,’ she’d said in frustration when Paul had asked her why she hadn’t allowed Enid to move into the trailer with the other teenagers. Paul’s approach to that problem had been different, though. Even if you kept them from living together, you couldn’t keep them from having sex at their age anymore, so he’d dropped a pack of condoms into Carl’s hands after he’d moved here and watched as the boy’s face had burned up immediately. Carl hadn’t protested, however, he’d just slipped it into his pocket and thanked him faintly.

This little concern of Maggie’s was solved by itself, though, since the teenagers had broken up shortly after. It wasn’t the first time they’d argued and decided to break up, so no one was surprised or worried about it either, because everyone expected them to be reunited rather sooner than later.

Their trailer was where he was headed now, because Jamie lived there too. He knocked on their door and waited for an answer. Claire, the oldest resident of the teenage-trailer, opened the door for him and her face brightened up.

“Oh, hey, Jesus!” she said excitedly, pushing her straight, black hair behind her ear. “Are you coming for Jamie? Please say yes! You can take him with you too, if you want. Just take him away _forever_ ; you have room in your trailer, right? He doesn’t stop hyping about that Dixon, and I can’t stand it anymore.”

“I am not hyping!” Jamie yelled from inside the trailer and appeared in the doorway too.

“Yeah, you are, you even drove Carl and Johnny away,” she said pointedly, turning around to him.

“I didn’t—they went out to search for fucking carving-wood.”

“Yeah, sure,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Jesus, is it true that he was allowed to ride on his back?”

“Guys…”

“You’re just jealous!”

“I’m _not_ ,” the girl exclaimed, her thin, angular eyes opening wide in anger. “He sat down beside me during dinner yesterday and we talked, and you were the one being jealous, Jamie!”

“Guys!”

Both of them turned their attention back to Paul, pausing their argument for a moment.

“How is your shoulder?” Paul asked before they could start bickering again.

“Good! Only one stitch opened again, Harlan fixed that for me and gave me meds, so I feel fine,” Jamie said with a wide smile.

“Good lord, look at him being all happy because his superhero Jesus came to check in on him,” Claire said and sighed. “I don’t think I will ever hear the end of this. Just so you know, he was whining about how much his shoulder hurt only a minute ago. And now he’s acting all tough to impress you.”

“Claire!”

“What?! It’s true! Jesus, I need my own trailer,” she said then with urgency. “These teenage boys are driving me mad. Can’t you talk to Maggie? Let Enid move in at least?”

“This trailer was your idea, Claire,” Paul answered with an amused smile. “Weren’t you even the one inviting Jamie? Because, you know, he’s your best friend?”

“He was bearable when I did that, it was before he was allowed to go along on runs, and before you and almighty Dixon had showered him with attention that is getting to his head now.”

“Fuck you too, Claire,” Jamie said angrily and they went on with their fight, ignoring Paul, which he was thankful for, because he just walked away, not bothering to witness their little quarrel any longer.

When he reached his own trailer, he just let himself fall down onto his couch and sighed heavily. The calm they’d enjoyed for two years seemed to be over now, and he didn’t know how to feel about that. If what Wes and Bertie had seen and told them were true, that weird group, wearing the skin of dead people and claiming to have a symbiotic relationship with their roamers, could be a serious threat to all of them.

Images from the war against Negan flashed in his mind that he couldn’t block out, memories of the bodies of people that had fallen. Friends, neighbours, citizens of all the settlements. But it didn’t stop there. Images from a long lost and forgotten past came back to him—war, blood, death. It was ironic that he should have these flashbacks now, after the world had ended, when he hadn’t regretted being what he had been in his past life.

He let his hands fall back to his sides, feeling the book he had left there the day before. Reading was something that kept his mind busy, distracted him from what lied outside the walls and a past that was haunting him now. He took a deep breath and tried to relax, letting the tension in his body leave his muscles.

Suddenly the corners of his mouth pulled up.

Daryl had wanted to go with them on the search mission, but hadn’t been able to admit that in front of him.

It was stupid to let his hope grow based on that, the man had said himself that he wanted to be friends again, so there was no reason why his heart should react thinking about this the way it did. Besides, he couldn’t imagine anything else than friendship with him anyway, given the fact that he’d never shown any sign of romantic or sexual interest in any person whatsoever since he’d met him, and from what he’d heard, that hadn’t been any different before either.

He was fine with that, actually. He didn’t expect more from him, even if his body had a different opinion on that matter.

The past two years, they’d gotten closer, gone on runs together, and apart from little fights, they’d gotten along well and enjoyed each other’s company. After their last fight, the biggest bummer to Paul had been that he had fucked up his friendship with him; the rejection was only secondary to him, although his pride disagreed.

He’d been there for him when Daryl hadn’t had the guts to confide in his family members after what had happened at the clearing and with him as a prisoner in the sanctuary. Daryl had felt safe with him, had trusted him, talked to him when not even Maggie or Rick had been able to reach through to him anymore. But according to them, that never had been an easy task anyway.

Carol had been the one being most successful on that part, but she too had fought with demons chasing after her in her dreams that time. She was living at The Kingdom now; she too had defeated those demons and seemed to be happy, although Paul couldn’t imagine anyone being together with Ezekiel being anything else than that—the man doted on his loved ones.

Ignoring the very existence of each other during these past weeks had been quite exhausting. He had missed him, especially as a friend, and the way his company would relax him, both physically and mentally, free him from the negative thoughts haunting him whenever he was alone. They could just sit together around a campfire, say nothing for hours, and it would still feel comfortable. And he missed that, those calm moments they’d shared, the little cheeky jokes Daryl would make whenever he was in the mood, being able to talk about something with someone, and to know that you won’t be judged.

Fuck, he’d tried so hard all day to keep those feelings under control, and now, sitting here on his couch alone, he just gave up and let himself be engulfed by mixed feelings of happiness, regret, and fear. He was happy that Daryl had offered the olive branch, felt regret over letting them drift apart because of a fucking little kiss, and fear because of the uncertainty of what the future held for them after that day, meeting that hostile and dangerous group.

He wished he would have stepped up to him earlier, had thanked him, asked him to stay for dinner, as Jamie had done. Maggie had sent messengers to the other settlements anyway, also sending someone to Alexandria wouldn’t have made a big difference.

An impatient knock on his door pulled him out of his thoughts. He stood up and walked over to open it. It was Enid again, like the day before.

“Don’t tell me that some of Crystal’s group haven’t made it back, please,” he said and Enid laughed.

“No, I just wanted to tell you that dinner is ready. Why are you still in your armor?”

“Just give me a minute, I’ll be right there,” he answered and went back inside to change into casual clothes.

Sitting here and moping didn’t help, anyway, and he was actually looking forward to seeing the teenagers again. Their little fights always managed to entertain or just simply take his thoughts away from his own problems. And either was a welcoming distraction to him right now.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed :) I'd be really happy about comments :)  
> Feel free to talk to me on tumblr: @abigailht  
> Also feel free to tell me if I forgot tags or warnings, etc. :)))


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